Chapter 37

2nd October 2015: 1:32 am.

“We are not leaving until this whole thing is solved. Get up, Zhang!” My brother was still on the floor after that guy had punched him. What was wrong with Ted? He was treating me as if I was a common criminal or something.

“Will.” I remembered his name. I fucking hated him. He thought of himself as some kind of hero. Let’s see how much of a hero he’d be once he had a bullet in his head. Courtesy of Ted. “Move to the fireplace and sit down on the sofa with Ted. You’re going to listen.”

My hands were fucking shaking and I felt as if I was losing control. I took a deep breath, so that I could regain my thoughts. I’d worked too hard to let everything fall out of place. Nothing was going to stop me. Especially this guy.

“We’ll figure a way out of this Ted.” I smiled at him. I just wanted his attention. I didn’t plan on shooting anyone, maybe Ted would have to do it if this guy got out of hand, but for now, I just needed him to understand and see things from my perspective.

“You’re mad. I don’t want a part of this. You’re both fucking mad. How can you think that I would want a part of this?” Ted shook his head in his defense. I was speechless and unable to move. Hearing him say it… Seeing him turn away from me… This wasn’t my Ted. What the fuck had this guy done to him?

“Too late. You already are a part of it. This was all your doing. Both you and Li,” Zhang said as he moved towards me.

Will darted a look at Ted, as if to ask if he knew about it. Maybe he saw the expression on Ted’s face, that told him otherwise. But for a split second, he doubted that Ted knew anything about this.

I stood by the breakfast table as Barbara continued to sob in her dad’s arms. No one had hurt her, Zhang by the look of things had taken very good care of her apart from the cut. When we’d entered she’d been sitting on the sofa by the fireplace drinking hot chocolate which was now spilled all over the wooden floors. He had never tied her up or treated her like an animal. They were looking at me as if I was some kind of animal on the loose.

Will and Ted sat by each other’s side exchanging looks. I felt as if they were going to do something stupid, but I knew that I could stop them, with just one shot.

I got ready to shoot, before I wasn’t prepared to do it. Now, I knew that Ted had left me no choice. Once again, he was testing my patience and this time he was on the losing end. He had to realize that I was the one that was pulling his strings and he had to obey my rules.

Ted asked calmly, “What do you want us to do?”

I shook my head, thinking that he still didn’t understand. He was still thinking that this was some game. I directed my gun at the sofa and shot the side of the sofa. The echo of the shot ran through the cabin and it vibrated. I tried to get my composure afterwards making sure that I looked as if I knew what I was doing.

Barbara grabbed a hold of Ted even tighter as he hesitated before he sat down next to Will.

Zhang shook his head and said, “If we can all calm down then no one needs to get hurt.”

I was glad that he wasn’t venting his frustrations any more and was thinking clearly, which was a lot more than I was doing at the moment.

The idea was for them to know who was boss. For them to understand that there didn’t need to be any violence. All we had to do was talk and find a solution to our problem.

“What do you want?” Will ran his hand through his hair. I could see what Emma saw in him. He was the friend, the one that Ted betrayed when he married Emma.

Will was good looking, tall, light-haired, the complete opposite of Ted in features. It was as if I got the raw end of the deal. I’d seen Will and Emma meet up a few times, when I was following her. They never went to a hotel suite. Nothing exciting like that. More for a coffee or at his office. They would talk, laugh and his eyes would always linger as they said goodbye. Emma got everything. A man that didn’t love her, but was still married to her and the good looking one that wanted her to be his wife.

What did I get?

Betrayal and lies. I shook my head as I thought about Ted doubting my plan. I didn't want him to think of me as insane, but as someone he loved. I did it out of love. He must understand that. Everything that I did was out of love.

Emma had done nothing.

All she’d done was taken from him and I’d brought him back to life.

“Ted, aren’t you going to say something? What about Elizabeth? What about us?”

He ignored my question. I was talking to him about our child and our relationship. I knew that Ted still loved me. He was stressed, confused and probably had jet lag. I’d had good news about the hack, and once he knew about that he would see things my way. I always won him back. All men get confused from time-to-time. They just need a good woman to help them lead the way.

That woman wasn’t Emma.

But it was me.

***

Ted and Will were sitting and talking, their lips weren’t moving, but they seemed to be in sync somehow. Will’s eyes were focused on Zhang, and I hated the idea that Ted was comforting Barbara. It made me jealous, that he didn’t seem concerned about our daughter. I did it all for him, and now the one man that I’d ever loved was becoming my enemy. He was plotting against me. I wouldn’t allow him to get away with it. No way, I did this all in the name of love. My undying love for him.

“Why are you looking at me like that?” I asked Ted when his eyes once again looked at me with disgust.

“Don’t fall into his trap,” Zhang said as he tried to get a hold of my arm. I ignored him and moved closer towards Ted. We had been here for what felt like a lifetime. I wanted to look at the time, to see how long we had been here. But my eyes were glued to Ted. I kept waiting for him to leave Barbara on the sofa and just come and talk to Zhang and I about a plan. His dark brown eyes, which could put me to sleep and make me feel as if I was on top of the world, were now turning against me. He was siding with the enemy and I didn’t understand why.

“Ted. You know I did this for you.”

He shook his head, and gave me that look, the one that he gave me before. Denial. He was frowning and rubbing his forehead furiously as if he was about to speak to a child. Not Barbara, but me.

“You didn’t do this for me. This is too much. This is fucking insane,” he sighed as he stopped rubbing his forehead. I wanted to reassure him, tell him that it was okay and it didn’t need to be like this. He blurted out, “I don’t know what you expected to achieve from all this?”

He used his hand to emphasize the scene, the setting, which had only got out of control, because he brought a friend. He knew, he said it when he came in. Why was he acting as if he didn’t know? I started to get irritated, not happy about the idea of months of planning had been in vain. Especially the fact that Ted hadn’t come alone. He’d brought a friend. Since when did Ted get so weak that he needed a friend?

“Why did you bring him along?” I pointed to Will, who kept still like a statue as he kept eyeing up Zhang.

“Because he wanted to help.”

“But, you don’t even like him. He’s been seeing Emma behind your back.”

That got his attention as his eyes flashed to Will for a brief second.

“I’m the mother of your child. I named her after your own mother. I’ll meet her when we get married and we’ll be the best of friends. Emma’s not a good mom. You must know that. Her own daughter caught her on the bathroom floor passed out, she’d been taking drugs. This is best for everyone. Emma can get the help that she needs and we can be together,” I smiled as I said it to him, but he was still sitting by Will, not willing to come and be by my side.

He seemed to forget that he’d told me everything. I was his companion, ear, voice of reason whenever he needed it. I had heard the story about him stealing Emma from Will. Ted did what he was good at doing, taking what he wanted. He’d done it when he claimed to love Emma. Part of me wondered for the first time if maybe that was exactly what he had done with me. If I had been focused and concentrating on what was going on, I would have known that Will was no longer by Ted’s side.

I dropped the gun on the table, thinking that Zhang had his own piece and would keep an eye on Will as he had been doing. I got down on my hands and knees, begging for Ted to reconsider how he felt about me. I wanted him to know that I was his and nothing about that would change.

“Get the fuck off me!” I heard my brother scream as I turned around and Will was wrestling him for his gun. They were swaying from side to side. My gun that had been on the table was gone. I got up and started to panic. I could bite him. Fight back. I was good at fighting, I may have been small, but that didn’t stop me from being able to do some damage to him.

“Don’t!” I screamed out.

My heart was racing out of control as Will, who was tall and had a surge of energy yelled at the top of his lungs.

“Run!”

His eyes darted towards Ted and I didn’t know where to go. I was fighting Will and trying to get him away from Zhang, who was already weak from the blow earlier. That was when there was a gunshot. It echoed so loudly and everyone stopped. Everyone except Will.

“You need to stop this! Ted doesn’t love you. Look…”

I didn’t listen as I saw that it was Zhang who had been hit. He was bleeding and the blood was spreading on the wooden ground, covering up the display of photos that Will spread over the floor as if he was throwing sand in the wind. It was as if they were everywhere, and I couldn’t help but stop myself from running to my brother’s aid, to picking up the photos.

Will had left for me.

I picked up the photos which were being polluted with blood and then I saw Ted, with not just one woman, but two, three. All these women. The photos were timestamped and Will waited for a second as I started to go through the photos. I couldn’t believe it. The man that I loved had been cheating on me endlessly. It was as if the loss of my brother had been in vain. My heart started to beat out of control, because there wasn’t only one photo, but dozens of them. All on display for me to see, I didn’t know who i hated kidnapping was all in vain and I couldn’t think as I kept blinking, with my hands covered in blood picking up the photos.

“Emma hired me to take photos to use them in the divorce settlement. They all have time and date stamp on the photo as you can see.” Then Will started to walk away, and he left me with my dead brother and photos. More evidence of Ted’s lies. Ted came closer, maybe to try and console me? Barbara, I couldn’t see. Maybe she was standing by the door. My eyes were cloudy. I could hardly see, but I didn’t hesitate in picking up the gun. He couldn’t do this to me. I had done everything for him.

Everything!